All cinemas in Quebec closed on March 15, 2020, at the start of the pandemic, and the marquees remained out of action for 14 weeks, until June. Then, during the second wave, the following fall, 77 of Quebec’s 93 theaters closed the box office between 7 and 13 weeks.
No wonder, then, that throughout this first entire pandemic year, theaters sold just 4.3 million tickets, or 14.4 million fewer tickets than in 2019.
Attendance fell the most in Montreal and Laval (-79%), two areas where theaters closed earlier during the second wave, reveals the report produced annually by the Observatory of Culture et des ISQ. (A new window).
A higher percentage of Quebec films
Similarly, due to the delay of many releases by distributors, fewer new films were shown in theaters in 2020. The number of new films has thus decreased by 61% compared to 2019.
On the other hand, the share of Quebec films in theatrical acceptance rose to 13.1%. In addition, 17% of the films shown in theaters were from Quebec, Peak since 1985
, refers to the observatory.
mafia company It is the only Quebec film that ranked eighthNS It ranked first in the list of the ten films with the highest acceptance rate in 2020.
